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I recently finished reading Zig Ziglar’s Secrets Of Closing The Sale – For Anyone Who Must Get Others To Say Yes! by Zig Ziglar.

Below are key excerpts from the book that I found particularly insightful:

1- “If, in your heart, you really feel the sales process is something you do t0 the prospect, then you are a manipulator. The dictionary defines manipulate: “To control the action of, by management; also, to manage artfully or fraudulently. Manipulation: Skillful or dexterous management, sometimes for purpose of fraud, state of being manipulated.” I’ll be the first to admit that manipulators make sales, but in my thirty-six years in the profession I have never known even one manipulator who was successful in the profession. If, in your heart, you feel the sales process is something you do for the prospect, then this book could represent a significant addition to your sales library. Your benefits will be considerable because you are truly interested in benefiting others.”

2- “You’ve got to establish that trust and respect with your prospects if you expect to be a sales professional. This should be obvious. but for fear it’s not, I’ll spell it out. Again, you cannot be one kind of person and another kind of salesperson. You must be consistent in all areas of life if you are going to achieve maximum results in building your sales career. That’s one of the major reasons we deal with the entire person rather than just the salesperson throughout this book. This is one of the “not-so-little” things that make the buying difference in the prospect’s mind.”

3- “People forget price but they’ll never forget poor quality or a poor choice. They generally give the salesperson a generous portion of the blame. Some of that goes with the territory, but too much blame means you won’t have the territory for long.”

4- “High performers in the world of selling establish trust with customers by one-on-one, eye-to-eye communication skills. They maintain n trust by personally assuming responsibility for completing the sale, which means servicing the account on an ongoing basis and utilizing their company support people in the most effective manner. High performers demonstrated great integrity with their follow-through and belief that the sale is not complete until the product is installed and functioning satisfactorily.”

5- “The critical step: in the world of selling is this step of honesty which is your total conviction, your complete belief that the product or service you sell is the best buy for the prospect.”

6- “Sympathy means you feel like another person feels. Empathy means you understand how the other person feels, though you do not feel the same way…To be truly professional you must be able to comfortably move from the seller’s side of the table to the buyer’s side. If you know how your prospect thinks and feels, you’re definitely going to sell more of what you’re selling because you will communicate more effectively.”

7- “One myth—that a salesperson should not get involved with customer concerns other than the purpose of the sales call—was exploded, as was the concept that price isn’t important and that you should “promise them anything” to close a sale. Customers want and expect heir salespeople to be able to act as trustworthy resources who respond directly and provide them expertise, backed by effective recommendations. One significant characteristic of the high producer is his willingness to explain product drawbacks.”

8- ” H in the heart of your sales career is honesty, E is ego and empathy, A is your attitude toward you your prospects and profession, R is for physical, mental, and spiritual reserve, T is for tough—and the toughest thing is love”

9- “When the inner man speaks, the I not speak from the heart unless he truly believes in his product and/or service. This means that he must have paid the price by obtaining profound knowledge of his product or service. One must also believe this product/service is unquestionably what the customer/patient needs.”

10- “Almost without exception, every product or service can be sold by painting word pictures, especially if the pictures are in the present tense. As I’ve previously stated, we think in pictures and we buy pictures if we are painted into the picture as satisfied customers.”

11- “It’s better to have the no today than tomorrow for the simple reason it clears your mind. You can now pursue new prospects and not count on that one for a future sale. Once you do, you fall into the trap of not prospecting for new prospects and the sale you miss today will cost you sales tomorrow.”

12- “There is one specific point, however, when I throw in the towel and withdraw my efforts to close. That point is when the prospect makes it clear—after seeing the benefits—that he has no interest and cannot or will not buy. Until that point, however, I am going to make an honest effort to close the sale.”

13- “I deal with and use questions in every segment of Secrets of Closing the Sale. There is no doubt in my mind that your career as a salesperson will move forward faster as a direct result of learning how to ask questions and how to use the proper voice inflection than from any other skills you might develop.”

14- “To build a sales career, you need to acquire the knowledge made available through sales trainers, books, recordings, and seminars. With that knowledge you should weave in a poetic philosophy of life which says that “you can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” To the knowledge and poetic philosophy, add the common sense of the old farmer which says, “Friend, I don’t care what you do, know you’ve got to work and work hard at seeing new prospects and servicing old customers.” You have a moral obligation to work so hard at building your sales career and becoming truly professional that as my friend John Nevin from Australia says, “If anyone ever sees you coming and says, ‘Here comes a salesman,’ you won’t let him down.'”

I have recently read SPIN Selling, The Best-Validated Sales Method Available Today. Developed From Research Studies of 35,000 Sales Calls. Used by the Top Sales Forces Across The World. by Neil Rackham.

The main premise of this book is best summarized by the author in the first chapter of the book: “The traditional selling models, methods, and techniques that most of us have been trained to use work best in small sales. In this book I’ll be showing you that what works in small sales can hurt your success as the sales grow larger—and I’ll be sharing with you our research findings that have uncovered new and better models for success in large sales…One of the simplest models of a sales call does seem to be applicable to any size of sale; almost every sales call you can think of, from the simplest to the most sophisticated, goes through four distinct stages 1. Preliminaries: These are the warming-up events that occur before the serious selling begins…2. Investigating: Almost every sale involves finding something out by asking questions…3. Demonstrating Capability: In most calls you will need to demonstrate to customers that you’ve something worthwhile to offer…4. Obtaining Commitment: Finally, a successful sales call will end with some sort of commitment from the customer…We decided that the focus of our research would be to develop new and positive questioning models that could replace the old ones, which were proving so unsatisfactory…We found that questions in the successful call tend to fall into a sequence we call SPIN. In summary the SPIN sequence of questions is: 1) Situation Questions: At the start of the call, successful people tend to ask data-gathering questions about facts and background…. 2) Problem Questions: Once sufficient information has been established about the buyer’s situation, successful people tend to move to a second type of question… 3) Implication Questions: In smaller sales, sellers can be very successful if they just know how to ask good Situation and Problem Question…4) Need-payoff Questions:Finally, we found that very successful salespeople ask a fourth type of question during the Investigating stage… is that they get the customer to tell you the benefits that your solution could offer.”

Below are key excerpts from the book that I found particularly insightful:

1- “The psychological effect of pressure seems to be this. If I’m asking you to make a very small decision, then—if I pressure you—it’s easier for you to say yes than to have an argument. Consequently, with a small decision, the effect of pressure is positive. But this isn’t so with large decisions. The bigger the decision, the more negatively people generally react to pressure.”

2- “By forcing the customer into a decision, closing techniques speed the sales transaction…Closing techniques may increase the chances of making a sale with low-priced products. With expensive products or services, they reduce the chances of making a sale.”

3- “The first step in successful closing is to set the right objectives. The starting point for obtaining a commitment is to know what level of commitment from the customer will be needed to make the call a success.”

4- “So what’s the test of closing success? What’s the result, or outcome, that allows us to say that one call has been successful while another has failed? The method we finally chose involved dividing the possible outcomes of the call into four areas: 1)Orders: Where the customer makes a firm commitment to buy… 2)Advances: Where an event takes place, either in the call or after it, that moves the sale forward toward a decision… 3)Continuations: Where the sale will continue but where no specific action has been agreed upon by the customer to move it forward…4)No-sales: Our final category is where the customer actively refuses a commitment.”

6- “The purpose of questions in the larger sale is to uncover Implied Needs and to develop them into Explicit Needs.”

7- “Demonstrating Capability Effectively: 1.Don’t demonstrate capabilities too early in the call…2. Beware Advantages…3. Be careful with new products.”

8- “Making Your Preliminaries Effective: 1. Get down to business quickly…2. Don’t talk about solutions too soon…3. Concentrate on questions.”

9- “The Four Golden Rules for Learning Skills Rule 1: Practice Only One Behavior at a Time Start by picking just one behavior to practice…Don’t move on to the next until you’re confident you’ve got the first behavior right…. Rule 2: Try the New Behavior at Least Three Times…Never judge whether a new behavior is effective until you’ve tried it at least three times…Rule 3: Quantity Before Quality…When you’re practicing, concentrate on quantity: use a lot of the new behavior. Don’t worry about quality issues, such as whether you’re using it smoothly or whether there might be a better way to phrase it. Those things get in the way of effective skills learning. Use the new behavior often enough and the quality will look after itself…Rule 4: Practice in Safe Situations…Always try out new behaviors in safe situations until they feel comfortable. Don’t use important sales to practice new skills.”

10- “The most important lessons come from the way you review the calls you make. After each call, ask yourself such questions as these: Did I achieve my objectives? If I were making the call again, what would I do differently? What have I learned that will influence future calls on this account? What have I learned that I can use elsewhere?”